


Tentative Steps

by dragonimp



Series: Turning Points [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Mentions of the Blitz, Mentions of the Holocaust, Missing Scene, Post-Scene: Church in London 1941 (Good Omens), World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonimp/pseuds/dragonimp
Summary: The bookshop looked much the same. The cash register was new, as was the telephone. And the electric lighting, of course. The shelves were the same, if more crowded. The table where Aziraphale set the satchel with his precious books of prophecy was the same, as was the coat rack—and the coat he hung there was the same one he’d been wearing in the park that day, now decades out of fashion.Aziraphale could get stubborn when he liked something.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Turning Points [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657417
Comments: 21
Kudos: 154





	Tentative Steps

“Well, come on in.”

Damn near eighty years since they’d spoken, and it’s not a question or even a suggestion. Just a given: _come on in_.

Crowley let out his breath and got out of the car.

The bookshop looked much the same. The cash register was new, as was the telephone. And the electric lighting, of course. The shelves were the same, if more crowded. The table where Aziraphale set the satchel with his precious books of prophecy was the same, as was the coat rack—and the coat he hung there was the same one he’d been wearing in the park that day, now decades out of fashion.

Aziraphale could get stubborn when he liked something.

“Well don’t stand there like a fool, sit down already.” He gestured to the old, familiar couch that sat near the same old, familiar desk. “Shoes and stockings off.”

Crowley scowled to suppress a wince even as he obediently shuffled over. “You can’t heal holy burns, angel. You know that.” Sure, every step was agony right now, but it wasn’t anything to fuss over. Pain was just part of being a demon.

“I can still treat them,” Aziraphale insisted from the back room.

Crowley sighed and bent to do as he was told. At least he’d worn actual shoes tonight, not that it had helped much. “Don’t see why you need to make so much fuss. They’ll heal fine on their— _nn_ —own.” He had to swallow a hiss as the stocking scraped against the damaged skin. “Bugger.”

Gritting his teeth he yanked off the other stocking, his nails digging holes in the garment as he waited out the flair of pain.

He didn’t bother to look at the damage. It was what it was. All part of being a demon.

Aziraphale came in before he’d managed to coax his fingers to unclench. The angel shot him a sympathetic look as he knelt down, setting a shallow tray of water on the floor. “Here we are now—first things first.”

Gently, he picked up each foot and placed it in the water, nudging the tray into place until he was satisfied.

The cool water—helped.

Crowley risked a glance down, catching sight of Aziraphale just as he stood.

Aziraphale had rolled his sleeves up to the elbow. Eight decades without seeing his angel, and now he was faced with more bare skin than he’d seen since . . . how long since public baths had been a thing?

He shouldn’t be thinking of the baths.

Or when exactly he’d started thinking things like “his” angel.

Satan’s sake, the angel hadn’t been “his” even before their stupid row.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

Some tempter he was, done in by _bare arms_.

The distinct sound of bottles from elsewhere in the shop startled him out of his thoughts.

“You know, Crowley,” Aziraphale called from the other room. “That was quite. . . .”

“‘Quite’?” he prompted when the rest of the sentence didn’t seem to be forthcoming.

Almost a minute passed before Aziraphale returned. He held out a tumbler half full of amber liquid. “I was going to say ‘foolish,’” he said, his tone now subdued. “But it rather seems you should be lecturing _me_ on that front.”

Crowley accepted the drink with a snort. “Well, since you brought it up—what the heaven were you _thinking_ , angel? _Nazis_?”

“ _She_ approached _me_!” Aziraphale fussed at his waistcoat—which was a good deal more bald than it had been in 1862. “And I thought it might be a chance to—to actually _do_ something instead of just—just _sitting_ here and—oh—” He bustled to the back room, hands fluttering as he spoke. “—the continent is no longer my jurisdiction, you know, and even if it was, Head Office is—is so blasted _set_ on ‘letting things play out,’ so—so when I saw the chance—what I _thought_ was a chance. . . .”

He trailed off, and after a moment came back with a first aid kit and an armful of linens. “Oh, I’m a fool, aren’t I.”

Crowley hid his smile behind the tumbler. “Can’t say it was the smartest thing you’ve ever done, no.” But when he saw Aziraphale’s grimace he shook his head. “Angel—you’re _trusting_. You’re the kind to assume the best in everyone. Which is exactly what an angel _should_ be.”

Aziraphale picked up his own drink before sitting down in his favorite chair, setting the supplies down in his lap. “A fat lot of good it does me when I’m staring down the business end of a pistol.”

“Well, that’s why—”

Crowley just barely choked back saying _that’s why you need me_.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice, grimacing down at his drink. “It’s—it’s this war. It’s just so—I thought the last one was bad, but this one, it’s—it’s—”

“. . . Yep. It is.”

“They just—they just keep finding more ways to hurt each other.”

“That’s nothing new, they’ve been perfecting that since they left the Garden. They’re just finding cleverer and cleverer ways to do it.”

“But I keep—hoping. I just—keep hoping.”

Crowley hated to see his angel (“his”) so despondent. He tried to think of something he could offer in the way of reassurance, but nothing presented itself. Before he could get anything more than a few false starts out Aziraphale had knocked back his drink and stood.

“All right then. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

“—Uh?” Crowley said, his brain still on wars and humans with clever death machines. It wasn’t until Aziraphale knelt down again in front of him that he snapped back to point. “It’s—it’s fine, angel, I told you. Hardly more than a sunburn.”

“Yes, well, sunburns can be pretty damaging.” Aziraphale lifted one scale-covered foot out of the water and carefully patted it dry with a soft towel. It was so dissonent to have an angel kneeling before a _demon_. But here he’d done it twice in quick succession, seemingly oblivious to the way he was upsetting the natural order. “Well . . . no blistering, at least.”

“Of course not, it was barely a minute and a half. I’m tougher than that—” He broke off in a hiss when Aziraphale pressed a thumb into the ball of his foot.

“A minute and a half of _consecrated ground_ , something specifically created to be antithetical to your kind,” he pointed out with a pointedly raised eyebrow. “But I’d be more worried if you weren’t feeling pain right now.”

He set the foot on his knee to open the first aid kit. A moment later his gentle fingers were rubbing ointment into the damaged skin.

Crowley miracled over the whiskey bottle and refilled his glass.

It would be inaccurate to say he’d forgotten what it was like to be fussed over. Having someone genuinely care about your wellbeing—that was the kind of thing that stuck with you.

But he’d spend seventy-nine years telling himself that such things _didn’t matter_. He was a demon, kindnesses weren’t part of a demon’s life. He’d been fooling himself if he ever thought they were. He didn’t need such things. No one fussed over a little pain; pain was just part of being a demon.

Eight decades of denial now lodged in his throat as he stared down at white-blond curls, bent over his feet. Treating him as if he was worth something.

“I got a _commendation_ for it,” he blurted out. “For the war.”

Storm blue eyes glanced up at him. “For the whole war?”

“‘Oh look, Germany’s invaded Poland, and now England and France have declared war and _woop_ now the whole world’s getting into it again! That must have been a demon’s work let’s see who was in the area!’” Crowley stopped gesticulating with his glass and drained it.

“It’s the Inquisition all over again.”

Eighty years of tension drained out of him with a choked laugh.

Aziraphale finished wrapping that foot in strips of linen and started on the other one, giving it the same careful treatment.

Crowley filled his glass again. Tried not to think of eight decades worth of pent up feelings and regrets and second guesses and should-haves. But he’d never been good at getting his brain to behave.

His angel was speaking to him again. (“His” angel.) Was fussing over him and treating him like he was bloody worth something. His angel had smiled, that soft, incandescent smile, because of him.

Even he wasn’t self destructive enough to risk ruining that.

“No sense in you driving home while the bombs are still dropping,” Aziraphale was saying as he finished up with the second foot. “You might as well stay ’til morning.”

“Right. Course.” He tried to pretend his useless heart hadn’t fluttered at that. “More than enough miracles for one night. Oh—” He snapped, relocating a crate from his flat to the bookshop. “Before I forget.”

Aziraphale looked up from tidying the first aid kit. “Hm? What’s that, then?”

“It’s just some . . . stuff.” Crowley said down to his tumbler. “Books. Odds and ends. I, uh. I have contacts on the continent who grab it.” He cleared his throat. “Tempting people into looting the houses of those who—” His throat caught again, damn his corporation. “—who’ve been. Relocated. Very evil.” He gulped the last of his whiskey. “But if I leave it lying about where just— _anyone_ —could pick it up, that’s not Hell’s business. Tempting’s already been done and logged.” He coughed again. “And if that . . . anyone . . . maybe hangs onto it . . . just in case . . . that’s not my never mind.”

It was almost too much, having Aziraphale look at him with that blend of compassion and admiration. Crowley stubbornly kept his eyes on his glass.

“Yes, I see that I shall have to— _confiscate_ this.” Aziraphale stood, one hand on the edge of the crate. “To thwart you. Foil your scheme of looting.”

“Course. Silly me for leaving it lying around.”

“And maybe when all this is over. . . .”

“’Sssnot much,” he mumbled. “Just ssstuff. Just what they can easily grab.” Because Heaven and Hell were both watching the camps too closely. Watching the whole bloody mess just _play out_. Just watching as—

Crowley groped for the whiskey.

The whiskey bottle would have had an unfortunate encounter with the floor if another hand hadn’t caught it just as it slipped over the edge of the table.

Aziraphale didn’t say anything, just refilled both their glasses and then reclaimed his chair.

Crowley lifted his head, half a mind to say—something. Maybe something about the war. Maybe something about the _disagreement_ that had led to their decades of estrangement. Maybe something blasphemous like _so much for being the Almighty’s ‘chosen’ people_.

He occupied his mouth with drink instead.

Aziraphale seemed distracted, gazing at the satchel of books with an enigmatic expression.

Crowley kept his mouth shut. For once.

Could a single night be enough to mend a rift that spanned nearly eighty years? Probably not.

But it was a start. And even he wasn’t stupid enough to ruin that.


End file.
